“September Wine”
September 11, 2012
“Dando Shaft is the name of a short-lived psych/progressive folk and folk jazz band that was primarily active in the early 1970s. The band has attracted a measure of attention from recent compilation releases and Dando Shaft is today known primarily as one of the major influences on the progressive stream of the 1960s folk revival.”
Here’s to September and all her ripe gifts.
Skiffle?
August 7, 2012
Skiffle Acoustic Music on a Tea-Chest
The songwriter and singer Elizabeth Cotton. “Freight Train”
Fond teenage memories of coffee-bars, this and virtuoso whistling too!
Original film footage of The Vipers? Here. Sorry, but there’s no sound to this one. You’ll have to locate your own soundtrack: try this clip or this one. What you’re watching is eight minutes or so of primetime skiffle, from late 1956 or early 1957: three guitarists, an acoustic bass and a half-hidden percussionist singing their hearts out to a basement of London hipsters.
If there’s a similarity between this and the Humphrey Lyttleton clip from 1950, that’s because both represented a grassroots approach to music making at the dawn of British pop culture. Skiffle was nothing less than American folk-blues transmuted through the nervous systems of British teenagers, and explored further the rich seam of American roots music already opened up by the trad jazz revivalists.
Skiffle was kickstarted by Lonnie Donegan’s cover of Rock Island Line – a huge hit in early 1956: an imaginative reworking of the Leadbelly tune that, with its accelerating tempo, had all the excitement of early rock’n’roll. Coming out of the pub and coffee bars including the Gyre and Gimble and the Nucleus, groups such as Russell Quaye’s City Ramblers and the Vipers turned a hit record into a movement.
It’s the Vipers who are pictured here, with one extra guitarist. Maybe it’s a jam session. The location is almost definitely the 2i’s, the famous coffee bar in Old Compton Street, in London’s Soho. It has to be, with the blond-haired interviewer Daniel Farson not having to stray far from his usual haunts. Led by Wally Whyton – yes, the future children’s TV presenter – the Vipers were Donegan’s biggest competitors at the time, scoring two top 10 hits in 1957: Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O and Cumberland Gap.
The Skifflers were often the younger brothers (and, occasionally sisters) of the trad jazzers who had packed the 100 Club: Whyton had been a habitue. However they mined a different tradition – folk blues as opposed to hot jazz – and, crucially, placed the guitar at the centre of their sound. String, rather than horn instruments would attract the next generation of young British musicians, and acoustic would soon turn to electric.
The band are giving their all to a rapt audience. The crowd here is a wonderful cross-section of 50s youth: the older sophisticates, the young man with white shirt, unbuttoned collar and loosened tie, the bespectacled, bearded guitarist – the living exemplar of what would soon become the beatnik cliche – and, best of all, the young existentialist woman, with black outfit, a long necklace and a cigarette holder, posing in front of a jazz-patterned curtain.
It’s hot, sweaty, rock’n’roll in all but name. The Vipers’ breakthrough hit, Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O was not a traditional song but an updating of Sail Away Ladies with new lyrics: “Daddy-O” was a less-than-flattering term for adults, injected into teen slang by its use in the classic film The Blackboard Jungle. Lonnie Donegan wanted to record it but the Vipers beat him to the punch, and the fallout was bitter.
The Vipers didn’t outlast the end of the Skiffle fad. They had a third hit, Streamline Train, and kept on releasing singles until late 1958: their last was a cover of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues. But they had a enduring influence on British pop: not only did they help to institute the 2is as part of the teen circuit, but they also included – in later incarnations – Tommy Steele and two future Shadows: Bruce Welch and Hank Marvin.
As they realised, the great thing about skiffle was the fact that it was a way of making music that could transcend boundaries, that could include contemporary American pop music as well as traditional folk blues. This met a great deal of opposition at the time, as many jazz clubs loathed rock’n’roll, but it would be unstoppable. For more on this, see another Pathe clip of an impromptu band murdering Rock Around the Clock.
Daniel Farson’s appearance shows how much skiffle was becoming part of the media landscape. The ITV clip is probably from late 1956, after Tommy Steele’s success made the 2i’s famous. Farson was a Soho habitue who wrote a series of excellent memoirs, including Sacred Monsters, Soho in the Fifties and Never a Normal Man – in which he discusses his brief TV celebrity: “I was impersonated by Benny Hill, complete with special wig even though our hairstyles were identical.”…More at Pop at the pictures: The skiffle crazeMore Reading
Many fond teen years listening to Lonnie and the great Nancy Whiskey classic Frieght Train. Real home made music with all the energy of the new contemorary age
Radio Unnameable
June 5, 2012
Here’s the original 1971 version of the song used in “RADIO UNNAMEABLE”.
“RADIO UNNAMEABLE”
June Screenings – SILVERDOCS and BAM CINEMAFEST
We are thrilled to announce that this month the documentary film RADIO
UNNAMEABLE which features the music of Dando Shaft will be screening
at the SilverDocs Documentary Festival in Washington DC and having it’s New York premiere
at BAMCinemaFest in Brooklyn!
BAMCinemaFest
Tuesday June 26, 7:00PM
Q&A with Filmmakers and
Bob Fass
As an extra special bonus the screening will be followed by a rare performance
19 Rupert Street
May 9, 2012
In ’68, Sandy Denny joined Fairport Convention. In ’67, she was still in the Strawbs-and making these solo recordings in a flat in Glasgow. This is a pre-fame glimpse at England’s most beloved folk-rock songstress: The Leaves of Life; Trouble in Mind; Fairytale Lullaby; Milk and Honey; The Midnight Special ; her own Who Knows Where the Time Goes , and more intimate portraits of a fledgling star-all previously unreleased!
Price:$15.98
Read
Dando Shaft Song In New Film.
April 18, 2012
http://www.raremusez.co.uk are delighted to inform you, following talks with Paul Lovelace New York City based independent filmmaker that Martins acoustic music from “Coming Back to Stay” will be part of the soundtrack for the new ‘Lost Footage Films’ movie. We wish them every sucess for the 2012 spring release “Radio Unnameable”
Coming Back To Stay
Radio Unnameable tells the story of the groundbreaking New York City disc jockey Bob Fass and his innovative use of the airwaves to inform,
Dando Shaft- ‘Til the Morning
April 14, 2012
This is one of my all-time favourite Dando Shaft songs. Just a beautiful acoustic blend of magical sounds from the early
acousticmusicworld 